I'm taking the reigns back and starting the game thread... The Viks return to Chiles Center on Wednesday night. The Pilots have won 3 in a row in the series, including a 92-76 drubbing downtown (in spite of the fire alarm repeatedly going off during the start of the game).

PSU is 4-1 on the young season, with wins @Southern Cal (76-68), Willamette (84-63), SIU-E (90-87, OT), @CS Northridge (63-55) and the loss @Oregon (81-59). USC is not a great team, but any time you win in a Pac-12 gym it is notable.

Tim Douglas (Senior) runs the point, averaging over 32 minutes per game so far this year, along with 2.6 rebounds, 2.2 assists, 1.2 TOs and 12 points. Dorian Cason (Junior) is also on the roster, but has played only 7 minutes all year in the CSUN game. Did someone on here mention that he hasn't dressed for a couple games?

Geezaldinho wrote:Dorian did not dress for the first two games, I'm pretty sure.

I’ve seen two PSU games on TV (including the USC game) and Dorian Cason was dressed for both, but did not play.

Of course we know Dorian, who is now a junior with no redshirts available after one year active and one redshirting at UP, before heading to College of Southern Idaho (where he was injured most of the year), has had a tough time of it in college.

A quick check of other members of Bryce's freshman class, Oskars Reinfelds, David Ahern, and Jake Ehlers finds them having varying degrees of success in their basketball lives.

Oskars has played just a couple of minutes for D1 Troy this season after transferring from JUCO where he averaged a little over 9 points per game.

David is averaging 27 minutes a game and is shooting well at D2 Sonoma State. Of course David was a walk-on at UP and filled-in for David Carr after his first knee injury. Not a D1 caliber guard, perhaps, but a great teammate and well-liked by everyone at UP.

Jake is missing. I don't know where he has gone. He was playing for D2 Seattle Pacific last season, but quit the team half way through the season, and now in his junior year of eligibility, he's nowhere to be found.

So it seems that only Bryce (and to a lesser degree, David) has truly hit his stride as a top UP recruit....and the others at one time had so much promise. Is it attitude, the situation, or is it coaching? Who knows, but when you consider the group that replaced David, Dorian, Oskars, and Jake at UP....it’s finally worked out on the court for the Pilots.

Oh, and if Tim Douglas had stayed at UP he would have been a senior last year, and it is conceivable that Alec would not have signed knowing he'd be a backup. Regardless, he would not be the super experienced sophomore he is now if Tim had stuck around. In last year's game, it was Tim who tried to win the game almost single handedly.....and as already noted, scored a bunch, but in talking to Alec afterward, he was not impressed. "He could score, but he wasn't able to help his teammates score."

PSU's comeback is square on Coach Rev. He made a wholesale player change when we were up 27. I can see wanting to go deeper in the bench at that point, but a wholesale change to all freshmen/new guys with 5+ minutes to go? Yowza, especially in a rivalry game... you either need to wait another 90 seconds or so, or ease in the personnel change. Don't drop all the new guys in at once.

I understand that we want to get the younger guys some experience, but now I am sure that they lost a good bit of confidence.

We are a program and fan base that has not had an abundance of things to really enjoy over the past several years... A pasting of PSU would have been something for us fans. I'm pretty sure the story in the Oregonian of this game (if there even is one) now will not be the Pilots overwhelming PSU in just about every category, rather it will be their comeback.

PilotNut wrote:A pasting of PSU would have been something for us fans. I'm pretty sure the story in the Oregonian of this game (if there even is one) now will not be the Pilots overwhelming PSU in just about every category, rather it will be their comeback.

Oh, and Bailey was in a boot.

Im not sure they have checked Bailey out yet, but yeah, that's a bummer.

And just to be clear....even with the sub brain fart, it was still a blowout.

You can tell because Bryce White stole the ball from Alex and went for the dunk when Alex went to shake his hand with five seconds left. You only do that when you are frustrated.

thomas was 9-9 from the field. But his free throws

And this time it was Alex's turn to throw down 27. There is a certain symmetry to that.

Though a blow out would have been enjoyable, watching this team dominate the boards was impressive. Sharp looks dangerous once again, as does Tyson. Bryce looks like he is over thinking his shots . . .let’s hope Bailey’s injury proves to be short term, less like Nick Ravio’s senior year.

DeanMurdoch wrote:Yeah, I don't know....if you can't empty the bench when you're up 27 with under eight to go, when CAN you empty the bench?

Not tonight! Agree with PilotNut....this was a game we needed to not just win, but establish city superiority when we could.

Rev sends in everyone cold off the bench and expects them to compete with a team that was still fired up, playing trapping defense, and was more athletic than the UP team on the floor. When the "first" team came back in it took them awhile to get back up to speed after they thought they were going to finish the game on the bench.

Great ball movement tonight...it was obvious the new guys are assimilating the offensive schemes very quickly....UP just doesn't need to put all those new guys on the court at once.

Very doubtful we'll see KB for awhile....no idea what it was that was bothering him....but last time he had that boot on it was for a very lengthy time!

The officiating was TERRIBLE! CYO caliber would be a compliment to what we saw this evening. I'm not saying one team or the other gained an advantage...it was just BAD in general. When a ref would blow his whistle it was often for the smallest offense, and it was always about 3 seconds after the alleged offense occurred. Too many times no whistle was blown when the foul was obvious. I had my eye on the Referee Evaluator on the other side of the court...he was writing furiously!

PilotNut wrote:I'm pretty sure the story in the Oregonian of this game (if there even is one) now will not be the Pilots overwhelming PSU in just about every category, rather it will be their comeback.

PORTLAND, Ore. --- Sophomore point guard Alec Wintering scored a career-high 27 points and senior center Thomas van der Mars added 19 points and 14 rebounds as the Portland Pilots beat crosstown rival Portland State by an 83-71 margin Wednesday night at the Chiles Center. The Pilots led nearly start-to-finish and were up by as much as 27 points late in regulation.

Portland’s 6-1 is the best since the 1995-96 Pilots also won six of their first seven games. That team would go on to win 19 games and reach the NCAA Tournament.

Wintering, whose previous career high was 24 points earlier this season at San Jose State, made 7-of-12 from the field, 2-of 3 from three-point range and 11-of-13 foul shots. He added six assists and three rebounds in 30 minutes of action.

Van der Mars continued his dominance of the Vikings (4-2) by going a perfect 9-of-9 from the field. In last year’s win at Portland State, van der Mars finished with 19 points and 18 rebounds.

Portland played most of the game without leading scorer Kevin Bailey, who left late in the first half with a foot injury and did not return.

The Vikings took the early lead after a pair of free throws before tip-off as Portland was issued a technical foul for dunking during pregame warmups. The lead went to 4-0 on a jumper by Braxton Tucker, but Wintering scored the next seven points to give Portland the lead.

Van der Mars made a pair of layups and Pilot freshman D’Marques Tyson buried a three-pointer to give the Pilots a 23-16 lead and Portland would never look back. Wintering scored the final four points of the half to put Portland up 41-24 at the break.

An 11-4 run early in the second half pushed the margin to 64-40 on Pilot freshman Jason Todd’s jumper. Consecutive layups by van der Mars and Bryce Pressley gave Portland its largest lead at 72-45 with 7:47 remaining. With the Pilots emptying their bench, PSU was able to rattle off a 20-2 run to bring the margin briefly back to single digits, but the decision was never in doubt.

The Pilots outrebounded the Vikings by a 44-27 margin and shot 50 percent from the field while holding PSU to 40 percent overall.

Pressley had a typically solid all-around game with nine points, six rebounds, four assists, three steals and three blocked shots. Nine different Pilots scored in the game.

Tiegbe Bamba and DaShaun Wiggins led five Vikings in double figures with 13 points apiece.

Portland will return to the Chiles Center to host the Oregon State Beavers on Saturday at 7 p.m. Pregame radio coverage begins at 6:30 p.m. on Sports 910 and a free HD video stream will be available at PortlandPilots.com.

jumpstop wrote:I wasn't quite to my seat by the start of the game and noticed in the boxscore that there was a technical foul on Aitor. Any idea what that was for?

The guys on the broadcast said it was because he dunked in the layup line during warmups? Seriously, that's a tech?

Yeah, it has been for sometime....but only when the guys in stripes (it pains me to call those three we saw tonight, referees) are on the court and see the offending player.

Xubi was the culprit.

Not mentioned earlier....but UP's 3-point shooting was about as bad as it's been for awhile. Yeah, I know, "come on, it was a blowout," but there were a number of open shots tonight that just didn't go down....and some were not close.

DeanMurdoch wrote:Yeah, I don't know....if you can't empty the bench when you're up 27 with under eight to go, when CAN you empty the bench?

Not tonight! Agree with PilotNut....this was a game we needed to not just win, but establish city superiority when we could.

Rev sends in everyone cold off the bench and expects them to compete with a team that was still fired up, playing trapping defense, and was more athletic than the UP team on the floor. When the "first" team came back in it took them awhile to get back up to speed after they thought they were going to finish the game on the bench.

We have all complained about the (lack of) coverage from the O, but I will recognize that they wrote a nice game article (not the UP release I pasted in above) which I would encourage everyone to click on over to. It does reflect the manner in which we dominated most of the game... I stand corrected (and relieved). Its not a bad idea to let the O know that you appreciate the coverage and that want to see more of it!